Copyright © 2000 NLThomas
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Watersmeet, MI - At the monthly board meeting, of the Voigt Intertribal Task Force, held February 3, 2000, a constituent committee of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, the task force unanimously passed a resolution affirming support for Wisconsin's Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

On 20 September, 1999, LCO became the first American tribe to officially state its concern for Pimicikamak Cree Nation in northern Manitoba, linking that concern to LCO's own history of inundation (in 1923, Northern States Power built a dam which destroyed the tribe's way of life), and its opposition to a planned 345 kV transmission line that would pass across or near LCO traditional territory.

The September resolution also calls for "greatly increased investments by tribal, local, state and national governments, as well as by individuals and corporate and institutional entities, in energy conservation and genuinely renewable energy sources in Wisconsin and the uppper Midwest, to displace the 'need' to purchase additional environmental and socially destructive electricity from Manitoba Hydro." As well, the LCO resolution "strongly opposes the building of transmission lines in the territory ceded in the treaties of 1836, 1837 and 1842 where Lac Courte Oreilles people hunt, fish and gather for their subsistence."

Prior to the vote, Eric Robinson, Manitoba Minister, Aboriginal and Northern Affairs, and Oscar Lathlin, Manitoba Minister of Conservation, addressed the meeting. Both Crees, they acknowledged that hydrodevelopment has altered the way of life in the north; that the recently elected Manitoba government would be meeting with Pimicikamak Cree Nation "in the next little while to correct the wrongs"; and that the issues PCN has raised have been "outstanding issues" for a long time. The government's ministers told the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission they would issue a report card in eighteen months. They stated that the Manitoba government will appoint Aboriginal members to Manitoba Hydro's board of directors.

Michael Isham, Vice-Chairman of Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and Wayne LeBean, appointee to the Voigt Task Force from the Sokaogon Chippewa Community of Mole Lake, reiterated tribal concerns about EMF and the high rates of cancer among Chippewa people, and the irony of having Manitoba shipping electricity to the proposed Crandon mine (owned by a Canadian subsidiary) that would in turn, destroy Wisconsin's Wolf River watershed and forever alter the Mole Lake community.

The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission resolution is as follows:

Whereas, The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) is an organization consisting of eleven federally recognized tribes from Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin which have retained off-reservation hunting, fishing and gathering rights in territories ceded to the United States in 1836, 1837, 1842, and 1854; and

Whereas, The Mission Statement of the Commission includes a duty to provide assistance to member tribes in the conservation and management of natural resources throughout the Great Lakes region thereby ensuring access to the traditional pursuits of the Chippewa people; and

Whereas, The Chippewa lifeway, as recognized and protected in by federal courts, depends upon clean and healthy natural resources for religious, medicinal, cultural, subsistence and economic purposes; and

Whereas, the Voigt Intertribal Task Force, a constituent committee of GLIFWC, develops natural resource management plans, assists its member tribes in developing suitable conservation regulations, and directs GLIFWC's programs with respect to territories ceded tot the United States in the 1837 and 1842 Treaties with the Chippewa; and

Whereas, a 345,000 volt transmission line is being proposed to bring power from hydroelectric dams in the Province of Manitoba through portions of the 1837 and 1842 ceded territories in Wisconsin; and

Whereas, the construction, operation and maintenance of the proposed transmission line poses threats to a variety of natural resources that tribes rely upon to sustain their lifeway; and

Whereas, a number of First Nations in the Province of Manitoba have been, and continue to be negatively impacted by the flooding of their lands for hydroelectric generation; and

Whereas, GLIFWC is a signatory to the Anishinaabe Akii Protocol, which recognizes the bonds of blood, clan, history, tradition, language and custom among the Anishinaabe Nation, and pledges that the signatories will work together to conserve all resources, including land, water and air; and

Whereas, the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribe of Lake Superior Chippewa, a GLIFWC member tribe, has passed a resolution opposing the transmission line, a portion of which may cross its reservation, and has raised a number of significant concerns associated with the project.

Be It Therefore Resolved, that the Voigt Intertribal Task Force of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission does hereby go on record in support of the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribe's resolution opposing the transmission line and the reasons that underlie it.

Be It Further Resolved, that consistent with the spirit of the Anishinaabe Akii Protocol, the Voigt Intertribal Task Force of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission wishes to express its solidarity with the tribes of Manitoba that have been impacted by the flooding of their lands.